Wednesday’s Mini-Report, 5.13.26

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Warsh was confirmed with 54 votes: “The Senate voted to install Kevin Warsh as chair of the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, handing the millionaire Trump ally the reins of America’s monetary policy even as he faced skepticism over his ability to remain independent of presidential influence.”

* When Barack Obama visited China in 2009, he was greeted by Xi Jinping himself. Nearly two decades later: “President Trump arrived Wednesday night in Beijing, where he was welcomed by a military band, an honor guard, hundreds of Chinese youth waving flags and China’s vice president, Han Zheng. Such carefully designed receptions for foreign leaders telegraph Beijing’s attitude toward these visits. … This time, they sent someone who is high-level but whose position is mostly that of a figurehead — which could be a way to send a layered message.”

* All the news on inflation is bad: “Wholesale prices in April posted their highest annual increase in more than three years, signaling more nettlesome inflation as pipeline costs intensify. The producer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4% for the month, much higher than the 0.5% Dow Jones consensus forecast and the upwardly revised 0.7% March increase, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. This was the largest monthly gain since March 2022.”

* The bar is low, but this represents a little progress: “Republican divisions over the Iran war deepened on Wednesday as three GOP senators voted with Democrats to curtail the conflict, signaling greater headwinds for President Donald Trump as he seeks to stem economic impacts that have damaged the party’s political standing. While the Democratic-led measure failed, it was the closest a war powers vote came to advancing in the Senate in the seven attempts since the war began as GOP concerns slowly grow over the path forward.”

* ICE’s newest chief: “The Department of Homeland Security has selected David Venturella, a former private prison executive, to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency at the center of President Donald Trump’s controversial effort to detain and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Venturella, who has served as a senior ICE adviser since February 2025, will be named acting director following the departure of Todd M. Lyons, DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in a statement Tuesday.”

* In related news: “Ten thousand losses. That’s the Trump administration’s track record in court as federal judges grapple with the way ICE agents have swept through major U.S. cities and detained thousands of people in support of President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda.”

* It’s always interesting to me when discharge petitions work: “A bipartisan effort to force a vote on legislation sending fresh American security aid to Ukraine has amassed the 218 signatures needed to force a floor vote, the latest in a series of instances of rank-and-file lawmakers wresting control of the chamber’s agenda from Republican leaders.”

See you tomorrow.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”